Separating from institutions

On 9th of February I sent a short message to the magistrate of my home city, Espoo. In that message I stated that I will separate from church. I didn't want to support an institution with ideology contradicting my philosophy of life.

Usually children are registered when they are a few months old, joined in their christening ceremony. Many people without any Christian faith, remain in the church for miscellaneous reasons. I think that some of the main reasons are

• Family reasons. Some people don't want to upset their relatives. Motives for this are of course various, but I could think both altruistic and selfish reasons.
• Not giving it a thought. Life is so much easier when you don't think and take a stand.
  
• Church wedding. Even though you can be getting married in a church, people tend to stick with the image of belonging to a church community is required.

I have been wondering also why did it take so long for me to separate.

In Finland, if you or your parents have registered you into a church, you are obliged to pay a certain amount of taxes for the church. The money I would pay as taxes isn't that big - it's about 200 euros a year. Kind of irrelevant what comes to daily basis, but it's still a bit of money. I can be donating this to charity funds and a bigger percentage will be used to aid the poor.

I was still happy to get over 200 e annual discount to my car insurance just by stopping at an office of my insurance company. So, I'll rejoice of this saving as well and think of donating it to something.

I'll also attach the confirmation I got from Espoo magistrate for amusement. It's in Finnish and Swedish, but